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Saturday, August 10, 2013

I have always maintained that every parent should get to talk about their children, whether they are with them or in Heaven. Earthly parents talk about their kids ALL of the time: the sports, the accomplishments, the milestones, the challenges, the annoyances, etc.

Most Angel Parents would hear the comments of these parents about how hard raising a child can be and want to scream AT LEAST YOU HAVE A LIVING KID!!!

My response has changed since good friends of mine have experienced the loss of their son. I asked the Daddy, "How do you do it everyday?" (his son was 15 months old battling a heart condition and spent most of his life in the hospital). He said simply, "You wake up everyday and do everything you can for your children." I will NEVER forget that! For the first time in 4 years, it shadowed the guilt I felt for feeling helpless during the 13 days of my son's life. They had to calm him every time we left, they assured us it was "eustress", knowing that we were there.

It was the only way he could communicate with us and we were scared that his fragile health state was being jeopardized by our visits. Then again, we were also under the ruse that he was stable and would be eligible for further treatment. One can only imagine the guilt of parents who tried to help their kid stable for further treatment they were assured was going to happen only to find out he was dying all along.

The point of that tangent was to say that we DO what we have to do everyday for our kids, in whatever form that might take. At the time, we did what we thought was right for him and we wear it EVERY DAY!!

Back to my original point, those 13 days are all we have of him in this life and I would not trade them for the world. Most parents get to talk about their kids until they pass on, but Angel Parents don't. Lots of people shy away from any conversation regarding a child we have lost but I want to scream from the mountain tops "MY CHILD DI EXIST!!" He's just like everyone else's kid; he lived, albeit for a short time, but from the moment he was conceived he lived!

So I am adopting a new routine. When someone tells me about losing their child, I will smile and ask them to tell me about their Angel Baby. I can go on and on about my son and what a wonderful force he is in our lives and even as I think on it now there is a smile on my face. Isn't that what every Angel Parent deserves? We hurt so much over the loss of our babies. Don't we, like every parent, deserve the chance to brag and smile?

I wear my roll as an Angel Mommy proudly and I will share Trey's life even more proudly. Why shouldn't I?